Astalab, here I am

Presentations
1

Hello everyone,

I’m David, I’m 32 years old and I’m a geomatician on the border :switzerland: (on the :clipperton_island: side). I’m brand new (well, well, new) to the world of home automation and I still have a lot of questions in my head. But I want to embark on this adventure :slightly_smiling_face:

I discovered Gladys while surfing the internet, and its offline, French, and simplicity aspect immediately interested me, knowing that in addition I am looking to de-Google/de-Gafamize more and more (but this is another subject).

In terms of hardware, I have a Rpi 4 on which I installed Gladys, and… that’s it. It’s complicated financially right now, even to buy a connected bulb or socket. But it’s planned :+1:
Anyway, I still need to understand some aspects (especially protocols and gateways/bridges/gateways, etc.) before buying anything.
I still configured the CalDav integration (with the Fruux service) and an old Microsoft USB camera to do something anyway :upside_down_face:

I’m not a developer, and I don’t have real knowledge in that area, but if the adventure continues to interest me, I could see myself doing (a little) Python if it’s useful for Gladys (?).

That’s all, that’s all.
In any case, hats off to the entire Gladys team, the work done is quite impressive!
I would like, later, to go for Gladys Plus. It’s not for tomorrow, but maybe the day after tomorrow… (:crossed_fingers:)

Thanks :slight_smile:

2

Hello @astalab and thank you for your message!

Welcome to the Gladys community :slight_smile:

Don’t hesitate if you have any questions.

From what I observe in home automation today, the « trend » protocol of the moment is Zigbee. It’s reliable, there are devices from many brands at very good prices, and they are very design-oriented.

In terms of privacy, the best option is to use a Zigbee USB key and use Zigbee2mqtt to retrieve the data in Gladys.

No Python in Gladys, it’s JavaScript. But there are plenty of other ways to help, and JS is quite easy to understand :slight_smile:

Great! Don’t hesitate if you want to try it, we have a free 14-day trial.

See you soon and don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions!

3

Thanks for your welcome :slightly_smiling_face:

That’s what I understood by reading one of your messages, indeed.

So, the logic in home automation is: home automation box (Gladys) < Gateway (ZiGate for example) < Object (bulb)?

From my research, 1 protocol = 1 gateway.
So 1 WiFi connected object = 1 WiFi gateway, 1 Zigbee object = 1 Zigbee gateway, 1 Z-Wave object = 1 Z-Wave gateway…?
And Gladys takes care of « connecting » all this?

These are really beginner questions, I warned you :upside_down_face:

4

That’s right, after the « gateway » it can be either a USB dongle (in the case of Zigbee/Z-Wave) or a Wi-Fi bridge (Philips Hue for example), but in some cases like Philips Hue which ultimately uses Zigbee, you can bypass the Wi-Fi bridge to go directly through a Zigbee USB key.

For the Zigbee dongle, I wouldn’t recommend the Zigate, it is only in experimental support on Zigbee2mqtt, but there are plenty of other better supported models:

A quick search on the forum will give you the models used by the members here :slight_smile:

For Z-Wave, my opinion is that it’s a technology that is used less and less in favor of Zigbee, because Z-Wave is quite expensive.

5

And to build on what @pierre-gilles said, it is also possible to use WiFi devices without any adapter (provided the Pi has WiFi, of course) using devices such as those from Sonoff via the ewelink integration or other Tasmota-compatible ones :wink:

6

Thanks to both of you for these clarifications.

@pierre-gilles I thought the Hue bulbs were in Zigbee, but can they also work on WiFi?
And so, according to what @GBoulvin says, can I buy a Hue bulb and pair it directly with the RPi, without anything else? Then via Gladys, it will be recognized and I will be able to manage it?

Still regarding these gateways (bridge?), if I take for example Lidl with their « Silvercrest SmartHome » gateway which uses the Zigbee protocol: does this mean that if I buy a device from another brand but compatible with Zigbee, the Lidl gateway will also be able to pair it (since it’s the same Zigbee protocol)?

7

No! For Philips Hue, there are two options:

  • Either you buy a Hue bridge that will act as a bridge between your bulbs and your Rpi. The bridge is connected both to your bulbs via Zigbee and to your local network via Ethernet cable. Therefore, Gladys can contact your bulbs by sending a request via your local network to the bridge, which will then send a request to the bulb via Zigbee.
  • Or you buy a Zigbee USB key, and then you will be able to contact the bulb directly in Gladys.

I don’t think so (though it depends on each device). Zigbee is just the technology that carries the data, but the protocol behind it (the frame format) is proprietary to each manufacturer.

However, this is changing with the arrival of the Matter protocol (but we’re not there yet).